I came to you with best intentions.

Recent Entries

I'm going to call my neurologist and leave them a message tomorrow. I think I'm having a new MS symptom? I keep having these random "electric shock" feelings that shoot up from my lower back. Googling leads me to Lhermitte's Sign... and of course I had to test it by tucking my chin against my chest, and sure enough--bam! I felt it.

It's uncomfortable, more of an aggravation than anything right now, but I worry about it getting worse.

...I worry about everything getting worse. What can I do?

I've had a rough week or two. I'm finding it difficult to stay afloat and hold onto optimism.

New SPN tonight!! At least I have that going for me. :D And writing and sewing. Too much to do, must stay busy and cope as much as I can. <3

Second Avonex injection was successful. It hurt a little more and the injection site bled more than last week. I don't feel fantastic today, but I don't feel bad, either. Kinda meh, but that's not new. I've felt blah and slightly nauseous since the wreck.

Writing progress: almost there! :D It feels good. I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to really give it my all and get through this edit, but I'm also kinda glad I experienced the greatness that was 10x01. I'm content with the fic and happy with myself right now.

It's been a rainy week, so I'm reorganizing shelves and trying to get our clutter under control while the kids run rampant. David went out to trade a pellet gun for a go cart frame and parts (he purchased a small two-seater for the kids, a rusty winter project for him, and now he's on the hunt for parts). I'm thankful for the small things today. <3

It might be a bit much at the moment, but life is good. As proof, I'm going to copy deceptivemirror and (if I remember) include three positive things with each entry for a while:

1. I have an awesome partner, kids, families, and support network.2. Supernatural, Season 10.3. I'M WRITING! :D

This morning my BFF (who has been withdrawn for the past year or so) hit me with how he is possibly moving out of state soon with his GF. I'm not going to say much, except sheesh with the timing.

I worry about him (the entire situation is weird), but I understand how moving out of town would help them. I'm supportive, though in hindsight I wonder if he's been mentally prepping for this by pulling away from everyone. Some of his other friends ditched him. I kinda sunk my claws in and refused to stop sending him messages as normal, whether he replied or not. If he'd told me to go away, I would have respected his decision. He didn't, so I kept up my side of our friendship.

It hit me hard. I cried. I'm not telling him that, but recently I choked up when telling a friend that I feel like I've spent the past few months mourning the friendship because he's been so withdrawn.

I love him to bits, so if this is what it takes to get them started down a stable path together, I'm happy. I want him to be happy. He hasn't been in a while, everyone has noticed. I will miss his proximity like hell, but he's been absent from my daily life for so long now that it won't be a huge difference. A visit once every few months will remain the norm (I hope), plus fb messages and/or skype.

Instead of tallying all of the crappy things in my life, I'm going to use writing as an acceptable form of avoidance. I can't change these things, they're not personal, they just are. I can deal with that by turning the pain into art.

Avonex thoughts: the injection didn't hurt. I'm glad David gave it to me. I think I'll be able to manage the pen, but watching as I push a needle into my skin isn't going to happen unless they want me to pass out. Maybe if I had no other choice... but he's here, so that's that.

The emotional whiplash sucked, but that was limited to Sat-Sun. David's trying to get his prescription straightened out--it didn't help that he's been off his Effexor. I think he called the doctor's office today? I was going to pick up his prescriptions today BUUUUUUUT...

I had an appointment with my physician. My mom randomly called and offered to watch Jack. Cool. I sat in the waiting room for two hours (started reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau). The nurse finally called me back. 15 minutes in the room, Keppra prescription renewed, out the door.

When I walked in to pick up Jack, I saw a smear of something white on his tongue before he started puking. SOMEHOW he managed to open my mom's migraine/epilepsy med, Topamax, and chomped down on one. THANKFULLY JUST THE ONE. My mom counted them in front of me, I wasn't convinced. A few harrowing back-and-forth calls with doctors and ERs and poison control later, I was in the ER parking lot and my mom confirmed she'd recounted several times and it was just one. Poison control said ER wasn't necessary, just to keep an eye on him.

Okay.

Side note: the day started off sunny. When I left my doctor's office, it was overcast and gloomy. It started to sprinkle as I buckled Jack in his car seat, and the rain started pouring down as I headed to the ER. The rain didn't stop until early evening.

I left the hospital parking lot, headed to grab a bite to eat, and SOME FUCKING ASSHOLE turned across traffic at a busy intersection (my light was green). In the pouring rain. Right. In. Front. Of. Me. I hit my brakes, slammed on the horn, and my front-right panel was smashed by the right side of their rear end. The asshole didn't stick around, of course. I immediately pulled over, called 911, and an awesome lady walked up as I was waiting to tell me she'd seen everything and she would be my witness. The officer that showed up was pleasant enough. He didn't say much, took her statement, called the wrecker after he pointed out that I couldn't drive anywhere because my tire was rubbing against something, and gave me his card. He told me to stop by the station and drop off my statement later. I spent the next hour and a half waiting for David as some jerk glowered at me behind the counter (that was plastered with signs about no kids climbing on the furniture. I didn't let him climb on the furniture, but Jack's 2, okay, and toddlers don't stop. If they're awake, they're moving or screeching or rawring or doing something). The first thing he said when I walked in was, "You couldn't drive that home?"

I start Avonex injections tonight! I'm excited and nervous. Just in case it triggers any major seizures or I have any absurd reactions, I want to say that I love you guys! I'm very blessed to have an amazing partner, three wonderful kids (six including Doja, Nixi, and Scooby/Satan), and a supportive network of family and friends.

Life is incredibly short. This entire year has been one close call followed by another, and another, and another... and it's taught me a powerful lesson: don't waste time, don't waste love and energy. Enjoy your surroundings or change them, because tomorrow may be too late.

<3

Bonus ramble: everyone I've encountered on my MS journey so far has been great. I know they're being paid to be friendly and supportive, but tonight the lady that gave us the injection training was awesome. We talked about everything over the course of the training (kids, pets, childbirth, drugs).

I want to believe that I will be fine, but the risk of seizures scares me. I've been taking Keppra since May to control potential seizures, but the two back-to-back nocturnal seizures I had after taking Zoloft for five days in April was scary (dear past me: you should have gone to the hospital).

David's tired. He's going to help me with the injection and I'm going to read fanfic in bed until I fall asleep. Lily and Jack are spending the night at Mawmaw's, Trent is asleep (he wanted to see the hole the needle left and was disappointed when he found out I hadn't had the shot yet. So much love). Earlier I sat on the top porch, smoked, listened to my favorite songs, and watched the clouds move across the moon. I've had a good day. :)

Turns out that I lost most of the pictures I took this summer. The folders are still there, a few pictures in each, but the vast majority are gone.

I'm going to have to let this go, but I don't want to let it go. I had a blast taking those pics with the kids. The last trip to Thurmond with Brian (Grandpa) and Trent are on the Nikon, but that's when I started saving both RAW and JPG and I was worried about running out of room... so I deleted everything off the memory card, because I had "master" copies on the PC.

A few of them made it to Facebook, but so much quality lost ;_;

I've been creating restore points regularly. Time to get the external HD on that backup schedule.

I'll have to snap DOUBLE the amount of photos this fall to make up for the loss! :D Peak season is coming up, the leaves are beginning to change. The sunsets have been colorful this week, too. I think the river's calling me (only after writing this out did I realize that currently I have a ton of reasons to get out of the house and clear my mind. Why am I sitting here??).

Update: I can't let anything go, so now I'm testing different ways to recover data from SD cards. Lol. Jack of all trades, master of none. I'll let you know how it goes. Fingers loosely crossed, I know it could be a lost cause, but I might as well try.

David's treadmill stress test today didn't show anything (the injection stress test earlier this year didn't show anything, either). For his weight/health (newly diagnosed diabetic, high blood pressure, anger issues), his heart is in good condition. He'll wear a heart monitor for a month and use it to track any episodes. Most likely his cardiologist will refer him to an electrophysiologist, a cardiologist that specializes in the electrical activity of the heart.

Good news: his heart is in relatively good condition!!!!!!Bad news: we still don't know what's going on.

We've been lucky to find great doctors. My hospital stay in Huntington led to a solid MS neurologist. His cardiologist is awesome, my psychiatrist is amazing in comparison to the horrible counselor I encountered earlier this year. That's the silver lining. It's hard to deal with medical issues without the stress of finding a competent doctor.

I need to finish up my DCBB edit (that would have been done if not for David's heart issues and the ER visit last weekend), I need to post to the beta community (see previous), I need to wash dishes and continue the never ending cycle of laundry....

...but tomorrow's a school day, and I am exhausted.

My right arm, from shoulder to wrist and through my hand, and the right side of my face, from my cheek and down through the right side of my neck, has been getting tingly. Pins and needles tingly. I've noticed a direct correlation between the tingly feeling and stress, especially anger, yelling, adrenaline?--I've been avoiding anger. I know the tingles are a side effect of MS. I want to spend hours googling and reading.

I have Halloween costumes to sew, a sewing table to continue coating with polyurethane, a cat tower project in progress, and a thousand project ideas to make Christmas cash (we're strapped, it's been a rough year). I want to sew more pads, finish some mix CD art, finally respond to all the messages lingering in my various inboxes...

One day at a time.

I've been making progress on all the various projects, which is incredible considering the past month has been a blur of ER visits, hospital stays, and doctor appointments. Jack has a nasty cough. I've been teetering on the "do we go to the doctor, do we wait it out" seesaw, watching and waiting. The nebulizer is patiently waiting on the bathroom shelf.

David was getting stir crazy and went for a drive in an effort to avoid overeating. I'm going to snuggle his pillows and pass out. Our relationship and coming face to face with our mortality is another post... too much to write out tonight. Condensed version: I feel lucky to have him, to have the strength of our relationship to support us during this upheaval. We worked through a lot during our early years, we've made it this far (a decade living together, not counting the high school years), and I'm thankful for him. So much love.

Current Mood:exhausted

Current Music:"And if I'm the man, then you're the man, and he's the man as well..."

Tonight I took David to the ER--I drove 70 mph down Main Street, speed limit 25, and passed one car on my way to the hospital--because he had an arrhythmia attack where his pulse shot up to 185-200 and didn't go back down.

Fuuuuuuck.

Part of me wants to bury my head in the sand.

Another part of me wants to bawl my eyes out and mourn for the awesome 30's I was expecting. Our relationship is solid right now, we are happy together, we have a beautiful family. He has a new job, I'm getting treated for MS (THANK YOU, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT), and life should be good.

Except our health doesn't want to agree.

One day at a time. I'm so thankful he didn't go into cardiac arrest. We thought he was having a heart attack, his chest started hurting halfway there. Scary, scary, scary. After I parked they wouldn't let me back because they were working on stabilizing him. I sat in the waiting room and cried as I texted a handful of close friends. I'm not ready to lose him. I'm not ready to lose him. I'M NOT READY TO LOSE HIM, UNIVERSE. *shakes fist at the sky*

At least the kids are healthy (sort of. Jack suddenly developed a croup-y cough after I put him to sleep tonight, Trent's had a hacking cough at night since last week. Urgent care tomorrow? Probably).

Ugh, extensive cardiologist research incoming. Tomorrow. Right now it's 3:05, and I'm going to bed.

With the help of the internet, I managed to save all of my files <3 Ahhhhh. The last folder, Pictures, is transferring to my external HD right now. When it's finished, I'm going to make a copy of the external HD on my laptop and create a system restore point.

THEN it will be time to reformat and reinstall Windows on my desktop, rinse and repeat!

I'm thinking about Google Drive for photos, too (or keeping up with Flickr at the very least, considering I maintain a paid account for this reason). I've learned my lesson. There are too many options available to be caught unprepared again, especially if this is the beginning of hard drive failure. I'm not sure, all of the command prompt scans and checks said nothing was wrong with the hardware. It's more likely that Windows was shut down incorrectly while trying to install 8.1, which screwed up one of the major system files - ntoskrnl.exe. I didn't have a single restore point or image saved, and the available options to "fix" Windows didn't work, not even after waiting a week and half for Dell to send me a copy of Windows 8 and attempting to repair from the install disc.

In my desperate need to save my files, I learned about Ubuntu (Linux-based OS). It's intriguing. I love that I was able to install it on a USB stick, access my hard drive and files, and then plug in my external hard drive and transfer said files from the hard drive. Not sure I'm comfortable enough to use it as an operating system yet, but something to research and explore.

I see a MS neurologist next Wednesday. I was discharged last night after two hefty, 1 gram doses of IV steroids. I want to copy & paste the text I've been sending to everyone about talking to a nurse and her husband (who is also a nurse) about living with MS. Her husband has it. He chatted with me nearly two hours during their overnight shift, until ~3 AM.

I'm not going to let it get me down, but it is scary. There is a hulking '??' in my future regarding my health. Relapses can come suddenly. The affects can be permanent. They can go away. He couldn't use his legs for three months. His arm and hand were numb for a couple weeks and he pulled a pan out of the oven without a mitt, garnering third degree burns, because he couldn't feel the heat. His vision is affected, off and on, and he had to start wearing glasses due to the permanent damage. Pain, specifically in the neck/back, and muscle spasms will occur.

We chatted about the importance of maintaining our bodies and staying healthy, too. The correlations with vitamin D, sunlight, B vitamins. I'm going to cut out meat because I've actively witnessed my mom controlling her autoimmune disease, relapsing polychondritis, with vegetarianism. I might push it further if I can figure out how to be a vegan among meat eaters, but one thing at a time. Like my mom, I'll probably be the version that keeps fish/seafood in my diet for the omega 3's. And, well, me: I've never been a steak person, but crab legs and lobster...

Exercise and diet are important. My mood is important. Managing stress is important. Living one day at a time, enjoying the use of what I have right now is a necessity.

The scariest thing to me, more than forms of paralysis, is the thought of losing my vision. Guys, I can't even...

...so I won't dwell, just enjoy what I have right now and deal with what comes tomorrow when I wake up.

Seeing my kids last night and talking to them honestly about how mommy has a disease that affects my brain, how sometimes I will be able to do things and sometimes I won't, was incredibly powerful. I love them so much.

Going to sleep next to David was even better. A few days ago I thought I might not be coming home. I am home. My vision is still wonky, something to do with the muscles around my left eye due to this relapse, but it will likely clear up soon if the steroids work the way they are supposed to and shock this relapse into remission. David's picking up my meds now.

Another great thing about this entire situation: I found an amazing hospital and doctors. It's close to ~2 hours away, but it is worth it to go down there. It's obvious they genuinely cared, unlike the doctors around here that treat everyone like they are trying to cheat the system for pain pills (even when we clearly do not need or want pain pills).

Anyway.

One day at a time. The kids are at Mawmaw's watching a movie, I have use of my hands, so I'm going to put another coat of polyurethane on my sewing table (the unspoken before I don't have a chance is lingering in the air, yes, and I want to make it more optimistic, but it's keeping me moving forward right now).

I have a sore/dry throat (yay incoming head cold!), you can hear me me clearing my throat/going hoarse.

This was the 2398479237th take, so I'm going for it. No more do-overs. After the first rambling recording I made a rough outline. You'll notice the beginning is clear, the ending goes ramble-y. That's because I've recorded the beginning 7x more than the end.

Annnnd I am always nervous posting videos or voice clips. My voice might shake, I might mix up words (since the seizure I will occasionally say "toothbrush" instead of "hairbrush," for example), I have crappy grammar at times, and/or you might notice how often I say "especially" and "so" and "um" and "please do so." Whoops?

I'm cleaning up my Google Drive (which means I will be cleaning up my PC's hard drive soon), deleting a zillion random things that I wrote when I was younger. There is so much RPS. Random band stuff, cute combos that are 100% unbelievable in a Bad Way (Jonathan Davis and Lance Bass. Trent Reznor and Jack Johnson). Ahahahaha, while I'm glad most of this never saw the light of day, there were a few pieces that received SO MUCH LOVE and attention. I'm sad they never saw their full potential.

Despite that nostalgia, I'm not writing Eminem/Dr. Dre anymore. Those days have passed. I wouldn't mind posting the bits somewhere, if a LJ community or Tumblr group exists to free said bad!fic (that was written years ago but never published/shared)?

I should be working on my Dean/Cas Big Bang fic, buuuut I have convinced myself that I need to do this first, much like I had to clean off my physical desk before I sat down at the computer (and then cleaned up my computer's desktop before I opened Google Drive).

My follow-up was today. According to the neurologist who read my EEG, I don't have abnormal activity in the area that would indicate epilepsy or risk of future seizures, but he saw abnormal activity in other areas of my brain. My doctor couldn't guess or explain what the neurologist meant, so he referred me to see the neurologist and he ordered an MRI of my brain. I'm waiting on his office to call with both appointments.

It's been a disheartening two weeks when I consider David's follow-up. He has some form of heart disease. They'll know more after his stress test (currently scheduled in March).

Meh.

Supernatural is on, I need to deal with laundry tonight, and I want to sew. There's no point in worrying, so I'll stay too busy to think about it. At least enough to get me through the night.

I'm sneaking in an entry while everyone else is distracted. Not sure if I can squeeze five minutes out of this opportunity, but here goes!

I haven't made any progress on my Big Bang. Turns out that when I'm constantly surrounded by others, I can't shut off the "go go go, do do do" part of my brain. I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of laundry, dishes, and miscellaneous household chores. Knowing that David might go back to Slurry, I want to appreciate every moment he's home. I know what's coming.

The weather's been crazy, too. At this rate, Lily will be in school until July as she makes up snow days. School was cancelled last week due to weather (cold temperatures, lots of snow). I thought having an excuse to stay inside would encourage me to write, but I'm going stir crazy and I can't force myself to focus.

He might have a friend over this evening, so my goal is to get the kids in bed on time and tune them out while I write. Maybe curl up somewhere with the laptop? ...except in reality I will most likely open my documents, skim through them, think of 293874923 other things I should be doing (laundry, dishes, organizing), close the laptop and wander off.

I, um, might be struggling with the fact that the story is gory and weird and I have no idea how it will be received, if I should actually write the damn thing or pick a fluffier idea (if I see this through, am I burdening an artist with a really weird, bloody, fucked up story?). AHHH. Typical pre-story freak out ensuing, nothing to see here, keep moving!

AHH, sign ups for SPN-J2 Big Bang start next week. Last year I thought I'd manage to write two long fics but the year was crappy and I only managed one. In hindsight, I wish I would have waited for the Dean/Cas Big Bang.

SO MY QUESTION TO MYSELF... do I tackle BOTH ideas I've been lugging in my brain for a while, make attempts at both challenges, or do I wait for the Dean/Cas BB?

HERE'S TO 2014!!! If 2013 was a year of problems, 2014 is going to be about solutions. I have stories to write and crafts to do. It's going to be good. We might have health issues, but we're working on them (which includes INSURANCE, YOU GUYS, YESSSS).

Jack won't go to sleep (bedtime is 8 PM), so I'm letting him wear himself out as he toddles back and forth across the living room. David and I are going to stay up to watch the ball drop and welcome the new year properly. In the meantime, I have holiday mail to finish up!

The story's summary says it better than I could: For an angel, the building of a Nest is sacred. Dean doesn't understand. This story is 16k, so it's the perfect length to read (and reread) in one sitting. The premise is cute and the story is the perfect blend of heartache and happiness.

AKA I suck at summaries, but this is like the best cupcake ever. It's the perfect single serving, it satisfies all the cravings, and it leaves a smile.